We Love Killarney group clarifies its role in pending taxi rank project
KILLARNEY – The We Love Killarney group shared some information with the residents about their role in the proposed taxi rank project.
The We Love Killarney group (Laurence Sachs; Marloes Reinink; Blanca Calvo Boixet ; Alexandra Leisegang ; Thomas Chapman and Raeesa Fazluddin) writes:
To the Killarney community
Following the issues surrounding the proposed taxi rank in 1st Street, Killarney, we were asked by community members to clarify exactly what our role has been leading up to City of Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) commencement of the project. We Love Killarney (WLK) is a non-profit organization made up of volunteering Killarney residents with an aim of implementing projects to uplift the area.
In 2018, we embarked on a vision plan for the suburb. The plan looked mainly at sidewalk upgrades and traffic calming measures to improve mobility for many people who traverse on foot, bicycle, wheelchair or pram. In our research, we identified the need for a formalized taxi rank in Killarney. On 14 June last year, we attended a meeting at JPC’s head office in Pretoria where we presented the vision plan to management and technical staff.
We were informed by JPC that they too had planned an upgrade to the informal rank on 1st Street and that this had received approval from the City of Johannesburg. We offered to start with community engagement on this plan, however, JPC asked us to hold off on this. On 8 October last year, we held a public meeting at the Killarney Mall to present our vision plan for the suburb. For WLK this meeting was unrelated to the taxi rank project specifically, but about the overall vision.
We did not realise that JPC saw this meeting as ‘community participation’. On 8 April this year we were contacted by JPC, informing us that necessary approvals had been obtained and that implementation of the project was imminent. Our decision to support this hasty mobilisation was a severe misstep and we would like to apologise about the way this was communicated. We do not support the project without community involvement processes and proper approvals. Thank you to those of you who have supported We Love Killarney over the last few months.
We have more exciting ideas on how to improve our suburb so please pay attention to our social media profiles.
Details: We Love Killarney Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/welovekillarney/
What are your views on the taxi rank in Killarney? Share your views on the Rosebank Killarney Gazette Facebook page
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